E-Thesis 115 views 67 downloads
The influence of environmental sound on attention control and gait in older adults / LEANNE RICHARDS
Swansea University Author: LEANNE RICHARDS
DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.67879
Abstract
The world guidelines for fall prevention outline that 30% of older adults has a fall each year, with half this figure continuing to have more frequent and life changing falls. The impact of falls can lead to increased risk of injury, fractures, pain, prolonged immobility and a difficulty or inabilit...
| Published: |
Swansea, Wales, UK
2024
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Tales, Andrea ; Hanley, Claire J. ; Summers, Huw ; Barnes, Claire ; Porter, Alison |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67879 |
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| Abstract: |
The world guidelines for fall prevention outline that 30% of older adults has a fall each year, with half this figure continuing to have more frequent and life changing falls. The impact of falls can lead to increased risk of injury, fractures, pain, prolonged immobility and a difficulty or inability to be independent. The overarching aim of this research is to increase our knowledge of why some older adults may be at higher risk of abnormal gait and risk of falls than others. The main hypothesis running through this set of studies and thesis, is that some older adults experience degradation in their ability to resist attentional capture from highly salient but irrelevant environmental sounds, resulting in the shift of attention and thus processing resources, away from walking and gait maintenance, thus reducing their integrity and raising risk of falls. This thesis will present the outcome of three research projects (i) confrontation naming of sounds. Older adults were required to rate their perceptions of environmental sounds based on distractibility and pleasantness. Moreover, older adults were asked to categorise the environmental sounds heard. (ii) Influence of environmental sounds on attention control. Older adults took part in a computer-based attention control task to understand the degree to which environmental sounds influenced performance. (iii) Influence on environmental sounds on gait. A walking study will be presented outlining how gait is altered when listening to environmental sounds. Moreover, to gain a full understanding of how individual difference influences gait, measures were taken for balance, hearing acuity, cognitive ability (MOCA), and polypharmacy. Measures will be presented for gait perturbation and the types of environmental sounds altering gait patterns. Results indicate environmental sounds can induce a startle like affect that influence how participants felt they performed. Moreover, environmental sound we capable of inducing gait perturbation in older adults. |
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| Item Description: |
ORCiD identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2445-0228 |
| Keywords: |
Ageing, Attention control, Gait, Auditory perception, Environmental sound |
| College: |
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences |
| Funders: |
This work is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) - ES/P00069X/1 |